I am a composer living in Kansas City, MO. My wife and I manage a house, multiple jobs and two cats. And twins, as of 6 March 2006. I used to play the clarinet and saxophone pretty regularly, and for a time played in the Colorblind James Experience, the Hotheads and the Whitman/McIntire Duo. Nowadays, I teach music-related subjects and operate Irritable Hedgehog Music, a label devoted to minimalist and electroacoustic music.

This last item deserves a comment. Beecham uses the Sir Eugene Goosens arrangement of 'Messiah,' about the most non-historically-correct version you could imagine—using a Mahler-sized orchestra, a huge chorus and Wagnerian soloists. The "Hallelujah Chorus" is a wonderful case in point, with an enormous brass choir buttressing the men's parts, and some poignant snare-drum and crash cymbals adding that extra bit that really says "Christmas." I bet Handel would have loved it.